Nursing the System

🎙 Episode Overview I coach a lot of nurse leaders, and one pattern comes up constantly: "I want to get better at X." The hard conversation. Strategic thinking. Making data-informed decisions. And when someone tells me they want to grow a skill, my first job is to help them figure out what kind of problem they're actually solving—because the fix is completely different depending on the answer. Toda...

🎙 Episode Overview I just got back from California, where I spent a few weeks on sabbatical that culminated in my Grandma Marge's 90th birthday celebration—what she lovingly called her "dead or alive party." She said she wanted to be present for her own memorial service, and she deserved to hear all the nice things people had to say about her while she was still here to enjoy them. This episode is...

🎙 Episode Overview A huge passion of mine is giving nurse leaders a map of what strong leadership actually looks like across all the dimensions that matter—because that map isn't something most of us are given by our organizations, our bosses, or our grad schools. As I've been designing the Nurse Leader HQ curriculum hub for the new cohort joining later this month, I had to actually put those dime...

🎙 Episode Overview You put in all the effort to design a change project. You launch it, you train the team, you celebrate. And then a few months later, you look back and realize nobody's doing it anymore. The momentum quietly died, and now you're back at square one. This episode is about that exact problem—and what I actually do about it on my team at work. I'll walk you through my "Teddy and Judy...

🎙 Episode Overview This is my first-ever TV show case study episode, and it's one I've been sitting on for three years . After watching the pilot of The Bear on FX back in 2022 (the first episode is literally called "System"), I knew it was going to become content, I just wasn't ready. So I put it in the idea parking lot we talked about a few episodes ago, and waited. This past weekend, a horrific...

🎙 Episode Overview This one's a crossover. If you're on the System Sunday email list, it might sound familiar, I adapted this week's email into podcast form because I want podcast-only listeners to know there's a whole other arm of insights going out by email each week (and to be honest, this topic was just too relatable not to share). With my California sabbatical 10 days out, I've been grinding...

🎙 Episode Overview My default move is never to hand you a list of everything wrong with your organization—not because I think it's fine (I know it's not), but because I want to push you past the complaint and into the question: where do I actually have leverage? But today we're shifting the lens. This episode is for the nurse or nurse leader who has already done that work—who's already been asking...

🎙 Episode Overview This one's a little different. Taylor (my right-hand at NTS) is putting me in the hot seat, running a Q&A pulled from Instagram submissions and a few of her own curveballs. I'm going in blind. We get into a day in my life, what people get wrong about me, what moving abroad taught me, when I first realized I was a systems thinker, the things I'm still figuring out about runni...

🎙 Episode Overview This episode is not "Five Ways to Prep for Your Interview." It's about the relational and strategic dynamics that most people completely miss because they've been conditioned to think about interviews the wrong way. The same mechanisms that have us sitting in bad dates and bad relationships are the same mechanisms that have us sitting in bad interviews and holding positions that...

🎙 Episode Overview This episode is a follow-up to last week's conversation on action bias—and it's one I think a lot of nurse leaders need to hear. Today, I'm introducing a framework I've been using in my own work and with my nurse leader clients: the holding period. It's a structured pause between receiving an idea and committing to it—and it might be one of the most underrated leadership practic...

🎙 Episode Overview In this episode, I’m breaking down a trap I see all the time and one that most nurses don’t realize they’ve fallen into. We’re talking about the difference between seeing a systems problem and actually knowing how to work within it. Because those are not the same skill and confusing them can do more harm than good. 🔑 In This Episode, You’ll Learn The difference between “level o...

🎙 Episode Overview This episode is a real-time update on the structural overhaul I shared earlier this year. I walk you through exactly what changed on my team in Q1, what actually worked, and what those changes revealed about how our system functions. Because here’s the truth: good intentions don’t change teams. Structure does. When you change structure, you don’t just change outcomes, you expose...

🎙 Episode Overview In this episode, I’m pulling back the curtain and walking you through how I actually think about my business—strategically, structurally, and operationally. Because from the outside, online businesses can feel vague or even a little magical… and they’re not. This is a very real system. There are metrics, decisions, trade-offs, and priorities that all ladder up to one vision. And...

🎙 Episode Overview I recorded this episode after a long day at work, which honestly ended up being the perfect setup for what I want to talk about. We’re digging into a concept that shaped how I think about effort and performance— being a satisfier, not an optimizer —and how that idea gets misused inside healthcare systems. If you’ve ever been told “it’s good enough” when you know it’s not your be...

🎙 Episode Overview In this episode, I’m talking directly to nurse leaders about one of the biggest mistakes I see when it comes to developing their people. And while this one is especially relevant if you’re in a formal leadership role, it absolutely applies if you’re not a leader too. If that’s you, I want you to listen with a critical eye and ask yourself whether your current leader is making th...

🎙 Episode Overview This episode is a bit of a kick in the pants. I’m talking about something I see constantly in my DMs: people asking what leadership books they should read or what systems thinking content they should start with. And here’s the truth: you probably don’t need more content. What you need is practice. In this episode, I unpack what I call the consumption trap and explain why real le...

🎙 Episode Overview Tomorrow, Change Maker Essentials opens for our March cohort. And instead of spending this episode convincing you to join, I’m doing something different. I’m walking you through who absolutely should not enroll. CME is not for everyone. And I take that seriously. In this episode, I break down the types of nurses who would hate the program, why that matters, and what readiness fo...

🎙 Episode Overview In this episode, I’m checking back in with Katie, a former student inside Changemaker Essentials who is in a full-time job search season after leaving her role at a freestanding birth center. We barely talk about the course itself. Instead, we walk through what has happened since she graduated, how her last role ended (spoiler: the center closed two weeks after she left), and ho...

🎙 Episode Overview In this episode, I’m bringing you a different kind of conversation: a follow-up with one of my former Changemaker Essentials students, Mia. Mia is a nurse director at a large urban teaching hospital in Boston. She started by leading a single 18-bed medical unit, and was recently asked to take on a second unit, bringing her scope to 42 beds and 197 direct reports … while also wor...

🎙 Episode Overview In this episode, I’m talking honestly about what it actually means to move abroad as a nurse, especially in the middle of a very heavy political moment in the United States. This is not a “panic exit” episode and I’m not here to tell you whether you should stay or go. Instead, I walk you through how I think about moving abroad from a systems-thinking lens: how it restructures yo...

🎙 Episode Overview In this episode, I’m talking about something I see over and over again with nurse leaders: we care deeply, we work hard, we mean well… and yet our teams don’t actually change. I break down why good intentions, effort, and even personal self-care aren’t enough to shift team culture or outcomes if the structure of the team stays the same. I’ll walk you through three different team...

🎙 Episode Overview This week’s episode isn’t what I originally planned. After the ICE shooting of a Minneapolis mom, I shifted my focus. Instead of leadership strategies or business updates, I’m sharing something heavier: how we show up as leaders when the world feels deeply wrong. This episode is a reading of my System Sunday email—a message I spent the week crafting, revising, and grounding in r...

🎙 Episode Overview: This episode is part reflection, part reality check. I'm sharing how 2025 really played out—what changed in my corporate life, my business, and my personal world—and what those shifts taught me. You’ll hear how I set the foundation for a life that feels more stable and aligned than it has in years, and why I’m not setting huge overhauls for 2026 (even though I still have big go...

🎙 Episode Overview This week’s episode is a vulnerable one. I’m sharing what it looked like when I hit the early warning signs of burnout this fall and what I did to swerve before it turned into a full-blown crash. This isn’t a theoretical lesson. It’s a real-time reflection on what burnout actually feels like, what it taught me, and how I’m doing now. If you're starting to feel that low hum of st...

🎙 Episode Overview In this milestone 50th episode, I’m bringing you a very real-time reflection on a common mindset trap, one I’ve personally wrestled with and one I teach in Changemaker Essentials: the belief that we must get it right the first time. This episode started with me on the couch doing my year-end planning, spiraling into perfectionism, and then remembering, oh right, this is myth #7....